324 REPORTS. 



does not include it in his list, so that this is practically the 

 first authenticated instance of the occurrence of this species 

 in the Sarnian Islands. 



In looking through some old volumes of " Science 

 Gossip,"' I came by chance upon an interesting article on the 

 birds of the Channel Islands written by Cecil Smith in 1882, 

 in which he says : " Mr. MaeCulloch wrote to me not very 

 long ago that Mr. liougier. of Les Eperons, St. Andrew's, 

 Guernsey, assured him that about forty years ago he had 

 seen and shot in the fields on his estate several specimens of 

 the Great Bustard. He is well acquainted with the small 

 Bustard, and says the country people looked upon the large 

 sort as a species of wild turkey." This magnificent bird, 

 once a resident in England, is now extinct, and only on rare 

 occasions are stragglers seen in the British Isles. 



Until this year it was considered very doubtful whether 

 the Kittiwake ever bred within our area, although it is well 

 known to be a regular autumn and winter visitant. Smith 

 states expressly that this pretty little Gull does not breed 

 anywhere in the Channel Islands ; but I am now able to 

 prove that he was mistaken. I found on the coast of Herm 

 in May last a single egg which at the first glance appeared to 

 me to belong to the Sandwich Tern : but on comparing it 

 afterwards with the eggs in my collection, I at once perceived 

 that it was not a Sandwich Tern's egg, but the egg of a 

 Kittiwake. To make certain, however, I sent it for identi- 

 fication to the British Museum, whence it was returned to me 

 by Mr. Ogilvie Grant with a note stating that the egg was a 

 Kittiwake's, " with unusually handsome markings, resembling 

 those of a Sandwich Tern/' The nest consisted simply of a 

 layer of grey lichen (Ramalina scapular um) placed on a 

 horizontal ledge of rock. 



Mr. B. Bowswell has kindly furnished me with notes of 

 his observations on some of our Summer migrants during 

 this year, which I am glad to have, as my own notes are 

 but few. 



Wryneck.— Arrived late this year; does not seem to have been generally 

 dispersed in the island until the end of the first week in April, although 

 reported to have been heard at St. Saviour's on the 2.7th and 31st of 

 March. First heard by ]\Ir. Eowswell on April 9, and noted by him 

 almost daily at St. Martin's until July 19, after which the "Wryneck's 

 peculiar call was heard no more. 



CuekOO. — First heard by Miss Boley at St. Martin's twice on April 17. Last 

 heard by Mr. Eowswell on June 29. In Herm I heard the Cuckoo on 

 April 20, but the people living there told me it arrived on the loth and 

 had been singing every day since. The Guernsey newspapers reported 

 that the Cuckoo was first heard this year on April 12 and 13, at the 

 Vale and at Torteval. 



